Never Lose Sight of the Clouds

I am a student of Wildlife Management at West Virginia University, and a proud American. Lately (the past six years or so) my pride has been stressed to the limit by many shameful acts perpetrated by the current administration in my (our) name(s).

As a conservationist and joint "owner" of our public lands, I have been disgusted by the direction of natural resource policy in our country. The level of exploitation in the name of industrial profits has never before been witnessed in this country, at this, the moment we can afford it least. With climate change roaring over the horizon, now is the time to focus our efforts on that battle. Instead, because of the careless disregard shown by the Bush Administration and his appointees for the American right to conserve public lands and natural resources, we are fighting to maintain that which we thought was safe.

In order to make up for budget shortcomings, the administration has proposed the sale of 270,000 acres of public lands. Our public lands. My public lands. Your public lands. This is above and beyond the land already leased to industry for various levels of exploitation. Teddy Roosevelt , the creator of our first national park, is rolling over in his grave. As we all should be, if we were dead as well. But we are alive and as such should be kicking and screaming at the casual disregard for our wishes, and the careless handling of our most precious belonging, our future.

The Endangered Species Act is under constant threat from attacks by the appointees of President Bush, and every attempt is being made to weaken the only protection afforded to some of our most threatened American wildlife. Why? To make way for industry, specifically oil and gas developers. If one day I need to take my children to a zoo to see species I grew up seeing in the wild, then we have failed our wildlife, and it will be a sad day indeed.

Meanwhile, as global temperatures warm, the rest of the world is poised to do something about it. We Americans, who should be leaders, are way behind the game. Still buying larger and larger cars, with no regulation on fuel economy, we spew more greenhouse gases into the environment with every SUV purchased. Car makers are slow to develop technology that would improve MPG because they don't have to. If, through taxes, we make it more expensive to produce non-economical vehicles (NEV's) than it would be to develop new technology, it would amaze us how fast MPG would rise. The money gained by taxing these NEV's could then be put towards research on alternate energy sources. With this program, if someone still needed/wanted to drive an NEV, they could, but by paying their NEV tax, they would be furthering the search for a more permanent solution.

Drilling for more undiscovered oil is (at best) a temporary solution to a permanent and worsening program. I liken it to selling your appliances to pay the electric bill, when all you need to do is put in some hard work. We have many gifted scientists willing to work on this problem, all they need is support, funding, and the ear of someone willing to make changes. Our current president is not that person.

I believe that Barack Obama is the person to walk with us all into a brighter future, to listen when we speak, and speak what we need to hear. At a time when we all must work together to solve major issues, the last thing we need is to be split apart. Our nation is more divided now than ever, but it doesn't have to be that way. Open your eyes to a new path that we can all walk together.

Thank you for your time, I appreciate you taking a moment out of your busy life to listen the the rantings of a proud American. There will be more to come, I assure you.

Your Friend,

Jesse Phillip Cecil